An Education…
The coming of age tale of a young girl in 1961 England, Jenny is 16 with tastes of a women twice her age. She yearns for a more cultured life. Top of her class, she does everything she can to fulfill her parents dreams of attending Oxford. But will Oxford give her everything that she wants in life? A life filled with great food, art, travel, and substance. That is the path that Jenny is set on until she meets, David, a mysterious older man. He offers her everything that she could possibly want and a life that she had only dreamed about. But where does the money come from? And what are this guy’s true motives for a girl still in her teens?
An Education is one of the better coming of age stories that I have seen in recent years, but it’s not without its problems. Particularly it’s ending. I will attempt to discuss my issues without disclosing too many spoilers. While Jenny is the focus of the story, the much more interesting character is David. And yet the questions that David’s character raises never get answered.
Why did he go after a 16 year old girl? Did he just like them young? Or did he like being the teacher and mentor, showing them the world and grooming them for their place in it. Or was the age irrelevant and it was because Jenny, while 16, was much more cultured and sophisticated than most other woman; her personality was the flame that drew David, not her virginity.
Ultimately everything comes to a head with David and things seem to get wrapped up way to conveniently for me. Granted it’s not like this is the most complicated situation in the world, just a love affair between a girl and a man, so once everything pans out in the end perhaps I’m being overly critical of the fact that all the issues are resolved in a nice little montage that I think takes place over the course of a year. Perhaps because I invested so much of my time in the film that I feel would like I’m warranted for more of an epilogue with more consequence for the actions taken. But I didn’t get that, so I left unfulfilled.
Perhaps others won’t have that big of an issue with the ending and how things played out, but it gnaws at me. Which is a shame because the first 75% of the film of truly excellent. The performances are great and you’re full engaged for the entire time. But it all comes to a blinding screeching halt at the end. And that knocks the film down several notches for me. Wait for it on Blu-ray and give it a whirl then.
**
